Solo Leveling- Ragnarok-Chapter 275

All the time spent pushing Sirka to her limits had been worth it.

Suho had toppled a total of nine Elvenwoods so far. In the process, countless high elves who had prolonged their pitiful existences had been slain. The spirits that had been swarming inside their bodies like parasites had either fled in terror or attacked like demons, but either way, the result was the same. Every last spirit—their numbers beyond measure—had been incinerated by Suho or captured by Sirka and forced to submit.

Now the result of that effort was clear.

The frigid wind that emanated from Sirka’s small form swept through the dark alley in an instant. The enhanced humans caught in its path began to freeze, their bodies stiffening as frost overtook them.

“What?!”

“Wh-what the...”

Screaming in terror, the villains tried to run, but by then it was too late.

Sirka’s chilling energy spread like a storm, transforming the alley into a frozen wasteland. Jagged ice spikes erupted from the ground, and the enhanced humans became nothing more than statues, their frozen expressions locked in wide-eyed horror.

Then with a sharp crack, the ice shattered. Their bodies began to fracture, and the limbs they had received from magic beasts broke into countless shards of ice.

Those who had managed to somewhat free themselves from the ice desperately reached for the fruits hidden in their clothing. Their hands shivering, they raised the fruit to their mouths, trying to cure themselves of their wretched states.

But they were too slow. Before they could taste the fruit, Beru had already swept it away and presented it to Suho.

“Young Monarch, I believe these are the fruits in question.”

Ding!

[Item: “Tainted Elvenwood Fruit” has been acquired.]

The enhanced humans looked on in shock, their vitality fading slowly from their eyes.

Then it happened.

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

Beru let out a startled screech as the chokers around the debtors’ necks detonated in quick succession.

“I guess the chokers are rigged to go off when they die,” Suho murmured, a little surprised by the sheer force of the blasts.

Even Sirka was taken aback, hastily raising an ice wall to shield them from the explosions’ aftermath. When the smoke cleared, the bodies of the enhanced humans lay scattered—now missing their heads.

“I would advise against engaging them in close combat from now on,” Beru muttered.

“Th-this can’t be!”

Yeongjoon, the captain of the guard, had been watching all of this happen from the other end of the alleyway.

He was in utter shock as his mind struggled to process what he had just witnessed. Only seconds ago—or even just a breath earlier—he would never have imagined facing this scene.

I-I need to get away...

His survival instincts set off alarm bells in his mind, screaming at him to run.

However, his feet refused to move—but it wasn’t fear alone that kept him rooted to the spot. Looking down, he realized he was trapped, his feet bound tightly by Sirka’s ice. In front of him, death was approaching.

He desperately scrambled for an excuse. “N-no! This is a misunderstanding, I assure you! I can explain everything. I was just... just trying to...”

Ah...

Suho was walking toward him, calmly stepping across the ice-covered ground.

Disordered excuses burst from the terrified captain’s lips.

“I-I mean it! I wasn’t really going to kill you! The plan was only to hurt you enough that you would need a fruit! Listen, this is something everybody goes through...”

Suho only nodded slowly. “A misunderstanding, was it? Well, I suppose it might be. You were so very kind to me, after all. You even gave me a personal tour and pointed me straight to this alley.”

The way he spoke sent an icy chill down Yeongjoon’s spine.

The captain couldn’t tell why he had only realized this now. In hindsight, Suho had been like this from the very beginning.

Yeongjoon had seen countless villains cross the border from South Korea, fleeing to the north in desperation. They were always tense, paranoid, and vicious. No one trusted anyone in a hellscape like this.

But Suho was different. Without complaint, he had allowed himself to be shown around, following the captain with strangely little resistance. The young hunter almost seemed gullible. He had acted like a tourist.

Even now, that attitude was still there. As the hunter walked toward Yeongjoon, there wasn’t a single trace of hostility in his expression.

That was what terrified the captain the most.

“W-wait! I can be useful to you! If you let me live, I will tell you everything I know. If you want to survive in this city, there are a lot of things you need to learn! So if you kill me now—”

“Ah. Don’t you worry, dear friend. You will be even more helpful to him dead,” Beru said. He smiled warmly beside Yeongjoon, patting him pleasantly on the shoulder.

The captain of the guard was shocked, and his trembling hands reached for the hidden daggers in his coat. In a last desperate attempt, he hurled them toward Suho’s heart and throat.

“Die!”

But the daggers were only a distraction. Before they could even reach their target, he unleashed every attack he had, his body moving in a frenzied attempt to kill.

“Damn you! Stay back! If you kill me, you’ll never be safe—”

Squelch.

Something pierced the captain’s body.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sirka said. “Were you in the middle of a conversation? He attacked so suddenly.”

Looking as innocent as ever, the elf glanced over at Suho. She had already driven the Trident of the Ice Tree straight through the captain’s body, and the anger in the man’s eyes faded into nothing.

“Kiek! Young Monarch, your precious experience points...!”

After all these deaths, the only thing Beru seemed to care about was the experience. At this point, it was hard to tell who the real villains were.

Suho was not to be outdone, however.

“It’s fine. They wouldn’t have been worth much, anyway.”

Guilt never crossed his mind. If these villains had run all the way to North Korea to escape the association, then they were certainly criminals who had committed atrocities worthy of the death penalty. If their crimes had been anything less, they would not have voluntarily come to this apocalyptic wasteland.

“Arise.”

Without hesitation, he extracted their shadows.

[The Shadow Extraction was a success.]

[The Shadow Extraction was a success.]

[The Shadow Extraction was a success.]

The shadows of the headless debtors cried out, their voices echoing in the cold alleyway where winter had come too early.

The fallen bodies stirred. They had once drowned in debt and struggled to survive, but now they rose from death, the shackles that had bound them in life nowhere to be seen.

[Enhanced Shadow Soldier - Level 1]

[Enhanced Shadow Soldier - Level 1]

[Enhanced Shadow Soldier - Level 1]

[...]

Suho surveyed his new soldiers, his eyes gleaming. “So the magic beast body parts still remain after death. Sita would be pretty upset to see this.”

“Indeed, Young Monarch,” Beru replied. “They are similar to the dragonkin that he created through his experiments.”

Sita had gone to great lengths to enhance humanity, and after countless experiments in India, he had created the dragonkin. The villains of this city had reached a similar state through different means.

“The physical changes even affected their souls. That means the fruit is even more potent than I thought,” Suho muttered as he studied the tainted fruit Beru had collected.

[Item: Tainted Elvenwood Fruit

Acquisition Difficulty: ??

Type: Consumable

The fruit of an Elvenwood, the sacred tree of the elves.

It temporarily enhances recovery speed after being eaten. In return, a seed takes root in the body, causing permanent mutations.

It is tainted by a mysterious energy.

- Effect “Amplified Recovery”: HP and MP recovery speed increased by 200%

- Side Effect “Corrosion”: Permanent damage to the body]

Suho frowned as he read. “It says here the Elvenwood takes root in your body when you eat it. Is it something like a parasitic fungus? What is the fruit tainted by, anyway?”

There was no further information about the pollutant in the information window.

Beru was quick to caution him. “I sense the energy of the Itarim in the fruit, albeit faintly. You must not eat it in that state.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

From the start, Suho had no intention of eating it.

“How could I after seeing those things?”

He gestured toward the bodies of the enhanced humans. Though their spirits had been turned into shadow soldiers, their wounds were still gaping.

Inside the wounds, something moved. Thin, root-like tendrils writhed beneath the flesh like tentacles. They resembled veins drained of blood, and the effect was grotesque.

“Now we know how the magic beast body parts were attached,” Suho muttered.

“It seems that the roots wove them together,” Sirka added, her expression darkening.

“Sillad, is this what an Elvenwood usually does?”

[Sillad states that he has never seen anything like this before either.]

“Captain,” Suho said.

“Yes, my lord.”

Suho turned his gaze to the shadow soldier who had once been the captain of the guard. Wisps of black vapor curled from Yeongjoon’s form.

“What happens if someone eats multiple fruits at the same time?” Suho asked.

“The effects are multiplied.”

“How many times can they stack?”

“I do not have enough information to say. The fruits are so expensive we only ate multiple in the event of a fatal injury.”

“I see. What an unpleasant fruit...”

“So the more you eat, the more roots of the Elvenwood form inside you,” Sirka noted.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually turned them into walking trees at some point,” Suho said.

His eyes rose to the sky. The vast, twisting branches of the Elvenwood stretched high above the city, its foliage forming a natural ceiling. Among the dense canopy, he could see the dangling blood-red fruits.

Suho refocused on the captain of the guard. “Tell me everything you know about this city. I’d be glad to hear any information.”

“Yes, my lord. This city is divided up into four factions,” Yeongjoon stated. “First, there is the bank. On the surface, it appears to be a financial institution, but in reality, it holds absolute power over the city. It controls every transaction because it alone dictates the distribution of the fruit.”

“What else?”

“The second faction is the Huntsman Guild. They are enhanced humans who have grafted magic beast parts onto their bodies. They are the city’s main combat force. Their primary task is completing the bank’s requests in exchange for fruit. They take on various jobs, including hunting beasts outside the city and retrieving supplies.”

“In exchange for fruit? Do enhanced humans have a reason to continue gathering fruit?”

“They take great pride in the fact that they have ‘transcended’ humanity. As a result, they have developed an obsession with attaching the body parts of powerful magic beasts to themselves.”

“Hmm. Sounds like a kind of addiction.”

“Yes. That is an accurate description, my lord,” Yeongjoon replied. “Third, there is the Free Market Coalition. It is a loose coalition formed by the merchants and debtors of the city. They are not an official organization, but they make up a considerable part of the city’s economy. Unlike the bank, they deal in all goods except the fruit.”

“So the bank monopolizes the fruit entirely.”

“Yes. The debtors pick the fruit as part of the bank’s jobs, and the fruit becomes the bank’s. But if they are injured, they must buy back the very fruit they gathered by taking out even greater loans.”

Suho was silent for a moment. He thought back to the bank employee who had greeted him with a bright, practiced smile. That smile had not been welcoming a new customer—it had been welcoming another slave.

“Then who is the final faction?” he asked.

“The executors.”

“The executors?”

“Yes. They are independent from the other factions, and they maintain order in the city. They remain out of sight except in special circumstances. I have never confirmed it for myself, but some say that there is an S-rank villain among them.”

“An S-rank villain?” Suho repeated, his eyes flashing. “No wonder this place seemed a little too systematic for a lawless region. So there are beings who maintain order from the shadows, huh?”

Something struck him as strange. He glanced at the frozen alleyway.

“When do the executors show up? We’ve made quite a scene, yet they’re nowhere to be found.”

“This is a city of villains, my lord. Incidents like this are common.”

Suho grinned. “So what does it take to make them show?”

“I imagine killing every last villain would do the trick,” Beru remarked.

The captain of the guard shook his head. “No. If the city falls, the executors will set out in search of a new home, as they always do. Then they will build a new city.”

“As they always do?” Suho repeated.

“Yes. As I explained when we first met, this is the final ‘paradise’ remaining in North Korea. In the past, there were plenty of other cities built for villains. The ones who escaped from those ruined cities and created new cities here are the executors.”

“Why did those cities fall?”

“Well... Why else? It was because of Woo Jinchul.”